Cooper Labinger performs the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 with the West Covina Symphony Orchestra, Dr. Sylvia Lee Mann, Music Director and Conductor.
This performance took place at our Season Opening Concert on November 22nd 2009 at the Radisson Suites Covina Grand Ballroom.
Our main camera failed, so this video is from our "Back-up" camera. The angle is not great - not all the musicians can be seen, and this camera was close to the orchestra. But we really want to share this performance - and this amazingly talented young artist. Cooper is 17 at the time of this performance. He is a senior at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts.

Ranked No. 27 in the Top Ten Lists of "Greatest Piano Concertos of All Times"
1st Movement (quasi una Fantasia) Intro: 0:02 - Main Theme 0:32
2nd Movement (Scherzo) 8:01
3rd Movement (Valse Triste) 14:35
4th Movement (Finale) 17:54
Listeners' reactions:
"...probably one of the best "romantic" piano concertos of the XXIst century..."
"...this equals if not beats Saint Saens' G minor Piano Concerto ."
"...the [opening] orchestral theme [0:33] sounds absolutely epic. I think this almost reaches the level of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concert No. 2 "
" I was blown away by your piano concerto. The composition is brilliant! "
" Fantastic ending! "
" Love the orchestration and the virtuosic piano passages! "
" This ending hits my chills...I cannot really link this to anyone else's style."
" Beautiful harmonies...The overall energy of the [last] movement is fantastic!"
" I was so enthralled by the opening movement that I just listened to the whole piece at once."
" A masterpiece - Rachmaninoff himself couldn't have done it better. "
"OMG!!! did you compose this??! It completely amazed me from the first seconds...It's like a
Rachmaninoff concerto, but it's still your style, your creation. I loved it. Thank you"
"I could listen to it 100 times."
"...this sounds simply brilliant. "
"...20 seconds in and [I'm] just amazed! Beautiful sir! well done!"
"...let me thank you for this piece "
" I have to say I love your piano concerto!"
" A masterpiece! - beautiful work!"
" It's a great concerto. BRAVOOOOOOOOOOO!!! "
" Beautiful!! Bravissimo!! "
" Your concerto is awesome!!
"...let me thank you for this piece. "
" Beautiful day to you all my friends! With the cold comes and settles we will be able to listen to music longer. I share with you today a beautiful piano concerto, a contemporary musician, jjoe Townley. Good listening to this magnificent work so! (The Piano Concerto No. 1 is available on the google page ....)."
2-piano 4-hand score of the 1st Mov. at
http://www.scribd.com/doc/200537397/Piano-Concerto-No-2-in-C-Minor-Opus-2-2-Piano-1st-Mov
2-piano/4-hand score of 4th Movement at
http://www.scribd.com/doc/235124372/J-Joe-Townley-Piano-Concerto-No-2-in-C-Minor-Op-2-4th-Mov-Concert-Revision
I wrote two piano concertos in 2011 and 2013 to fulfill a promise I made to myself as a young piano student that I would write a piano concerto and then premiere it much in the same way Rachmaninoff did with his 2nd, my intention being to launch a career as a composer, pianist, & conductor. Well, fate had other plans---a severe finger injury grounded me as a pianist at 19 and I never wrote that concerto. Instead, I entered the business world. The dream eventually faded, though it apparently had been lying dormant somewhere underneath my psyche in the intervening decades. In the meantime, to keep my music skills alive and because I enjoyed it immensely I read orchestral scores as leisure reading--analyzing how great composers achieved the sounds they were after; the different combinations of instruments they used. Then one day a few years ago an innocuous tune just popped into my mind. The old dream bubbling beneath my consciousness suddenly surfaced and I finally committed myself to writing that piano concerto, which became the No.1 in F# Minor Opus 1 (also here on YouTube), not having any formal training in orchestration except what I had gleaned from reading orchestral scores in the intervening years. Later, on reflection, I came to realize that the Concerto No. 1 wasn't the concerto I had always dreamed of writing. A second one followed in 2013, the one you're listening to, Opus 2, which is that concerto.
The sound quality in this newly edited version is poor owing to degeneration of audio in any screen-capture program. A very good quality audio can be found at:
https://soundcloud.com/joe-townley/j-joe-townley-piano-concerto-no-2-in-c-minor-opus-2

RANKED No. 27 IN THE TOP TEN LISTS OF "GREATEST PIANO CONCERTOS OF ALL TIMES".
"...this equals if not beats Saint Saens piano concerto in G minor."
"...probably one of the best "romantic" piano concertos of the XXIst century..."
"...the [opening] orchestral theme sounds absolutely epic. I think this almost reaches the level of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concert No. 2 "
" I was blown away by your piano concerto. The composition is brilliant! "
" Fantastic ending! "
" This ending hits my chills...I cannot really link this to anyone else's style."
" Love the orchestration and the virtuosic piano passages! "
" Beautiful harmonies...The overall energy of the [last] movement is fantastic!"
" I was so enthralled by the opening movement that I just listened to the whole piece at once."
" A masterpiece - Rachmaninoff himself couldn't have done it better. "
"OMG!!! did you compose this??! It completely amazed me from the first seconds. It's like a
Rachmaninoff concerto, but it's still your style, your creation. I loved it. Thank you"
"I could listen to it 100 times."
"...this sounds simply brilliant. "
"...20 seconds in and [I'm] just amazed! Beautiful sir! well done!"
"...let me thank you for this piece "
" I have to say I love your piano concerto!"
" A masterpiece! - beautiful work!"
" It's a great concerto. BRAVOOOOOOOOOOO!!! "
" Beautiful!! Bravissimo!! "
" Your concerto is awesome!! "
" This is really awesome! "
" Wow!! Just Wow!! Two thumbs up!! "
"...let me thank you for this piece. "
" +4 I love the orchestration and the virtuosic piano passages. "
" Belle journée à vous tous mes amis ! Avec ce froid qui arrive et s'install
Listen to the entire Piano Concerto No 2 in C Minor Opus 2 with full orchestral score here:
https://vimeo.com/76201572
2-piano 4-hand score of the first movement, Quasi Una Fantasia at
http://www.scribd.com/doc/200537397/P...
under it's former title, "Concerto Appassionata"
2-piano/4-hand score of 4th Movement at
http://www.scribd.com/doc/235124372/J-Joe-Townley-Piano-Concerto-No-2-in-C-Minor-Op-2-4th-Mov-Concert-Revision
1st Movement (quasi una Fantasia) Intro: 0:08 - Main Theme 0:38
2nd Movement (Scherzo) 8:00
3rd Movement (Valse Triste) 13:10
4th Movement (Finale) 16:25
Website with more videos at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/JoeTownley
I wrote two piano concertos in 2011 and 2013 to fulfill a promise I made to myself as a young piano student that I would write a piano concerto and then premiere it much in the same way Rachmaninoff did with his 2nd, my intention being to launch a career as a composer, pianist, & conductor. Well, fate had other plans---a severe finger injury grounded me as a pianist at 19 and I never wrote that concerto. Instead, I entered the business world for number of years. The dream eventually faded, though it apparently had been lying dormant somewhere underneath my psyche in the intervening decades. In the meantime, to keep my music skills alive and because I enjoyed it immensely I read orchestral scores as leisure reading--analyzing how great composers achieved the sounds they were after; the different combinations of instruments they used. Then one day a few years ago an innocuous tune just popped into my mind. The old dream bubbling beneath the surface of my consciousness suddenly surfaced and I finally committed myself to writing that piano concerto, which became the No.1 in F# Minor Opus 1, not having any formal training in orchestration except what I had gleaned from reading orchestral scores in the intervening years. Later, on reflection, I came to realize that the Concerto No.1 wasn't the concerto I had always wanted to write. A second one followed in 2013, the one you are listening to, which is that concerto.